Lathe Leveling Foot Pads

[backyard_cnc]

Nice job on the feet and I originally did something similar on my own 12x36 lathe however I found the lathe was far too tippy on such a narrow footprint as offered by this cabinet and ended up adding outriggers to increase the footprint and make it dramatically more stable.

[Paul Jones]

backyard_cnc,

Your photo of the lathe leveling feet improvement is what I had in mind when I will be making the next set of leveling feet improvement. I think I will make it easier to construct by just coming straight out perpendicular to the cabinet sides and placed only 3" away from the front and back of the cabinets. I am sure your design was to optimize the support in all directions.

Depending upon the electric motor mount and lathe supporting feet designs, there can be many differeernt bad harmonics generated and can effect the lathe fine finishes ( see http://www.homemadetools.net/forum/l...ovements-17293 ). I found using Cylindrical Vibration Isolators for mounting the electric motor made a very big difference in the lathe final machine surface finish (see http://www.homemadetools.net/forum/1...chniques-19914 ). We have find a good way to support lathe on the floor and isolate the electric motor mount in order to reduce vibration harmonics. Even the fine adjustment of the change gears behind behind the headstock of a gear-head lathe with quick change gears can affect the final machined surface finishes.

Regards,

Paul Jones

[backyard_cnc]

Truth be told I bought a cabinet with these stabilizing legs attached and it was a simple matter to drill 4 new mounting holes and bolt them up to the lathe. I often use handcrank to do short threads up to a shoulder and if you got carried away it was easy to rock the top heavy lathe on the small footprint. On these outriggers it is rock steady. Had I made them from scratch I would have just done straight 2"" tubing. The increase in height was also a bonus!

Gerald

[backyard_cnc]

Sorry accidental duplicate post!